Kissing it Better
by BuryTheHatchet
Summary: Ziva tending to Tony's wounds. Fluffy, sad, funny in places, romantic…it is really just a bit of everything. One-shot. As always with me, that is liable to change.
**My brother reminded me of the scene in Beauty and the Beast where she is tending to his wounds the other day. I hate Disney films, I always have, but he has always loved them, so our childhood was usually spent debating over Disney and Pixar or Star Wars and Pride and Prejudice. I watched very few films as a child, as you can probably tell by my brother's broader scope of childhood films compared to mine. Anyway, my point is, he reminded me of that scene and all of a sudden this popped into my head.**

Kissing it Better

He hissed in pain as she gently cleaned the wound across his shoulder. "Sorry." She kept herself focused on working efficiently without causing him too much pain in order to distract herself from the fact that they were locked in the men's room, his shirt was still sat on his desk – which was not in the men's room – and she was stood so his legs were either side of her as he sat on the counter top, his bare chest in very close proximity. "I wish you would go and see Ducky about this. He would be better to inspect it."

"I just need to know that I'm not dying. I think I'll accept that assessment from you fine without a second opinion, Doctor David." He grimaced as she carefully removed another piece of gravel and dropped it into the waste bin that she had pulled over to her side.

"I do not think I am fully qualified. It is messy. I do not wish for it to become infected."

"If it were you, you wouldn't go down to Ducky, would you?" He challenged and she paused momentarily, looking at her reflection in the mirror behind him as he sat on the counter top in between two of the basins.

"I have a better immune system and higher pain threshold than you do." She said. "Your immune system was damaged when you contracted the pneumonic plague."

"Yeah." He flinched again. "Wait, how d'you know about that?"

"When I was profiling you it…came up…sorry." She closed her eyes and turned away momentarily. "I never thought that you would become like a surrogate family for me."

"You were doing your job. We've all been put into difficult positions." Their minds both flashed back to the La Grenouille case.

"The problem is, I did not feel like it was wrong at the time." She shook her head, as if she could physically remove some of the memories from her head by force, and went back to tending his wounds. She soaked a cloth in the basin of warm water and gently pressed it against the raw flesh where the skin had been scraped off. "You jumped in front of a car. Pushed me out of the way." She whispered, breaking the extended silence that had stretched between them. "Why?"

"Because it would have hit you." He shrugged with his non-injured shoulder.

"And why is it better for it to hit you than me?"

"Because you would be more of a loss to the world."

She scoffed and looked up at him. "Are you sure you did not hit your head, DiNozzo?"

"Yes. My head's just fine." He looked down curiously at her blatant disregard for her own self-worth. "Besides, you're younger than me. You've got more to live for."

"Age has nothing to do with how much one has to live for." She said in the philosophical tone she would use when speaking with such matters. "Anyway, everything I have to live for will go away when I go back to Israel."

His ears pricked up at this. "Israel? You're going back? When? Why? You can't!"

"Relax." She smiled softly, placing a hand on his bare chest to calm him when he started to grow hysterical. "I have not been called back to Israel. I am just saying that it is not an unlikely outcome. I am an officer of Mossad, Tony. One day, I will either be killed or called back. Until that day, who knows what could happen, but on that day, it will be the end of me having something to live for." Her expression grew sad and Tony's heart shattered.

"You know what's truly terrifying?" His voice cracked slightly under the weight of so much emotion. "The fact that, to you, this is heaven on earth. The fact that you seem so resigned to the fact that this can't be permanent."

"It cannot be. I do not belong here. Sooner or later fate will intervene."

"'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, for we are underlings.'" He quoted and she looked up at him in shock.

"Julius Caesar? I am impressed."

"I remember studying it at school. Only quote I ever commented on when we studied it. I said it meant that we controlled our own fate, and we shouldn't rely and lay blame on others, or the stars, for what happens."

"I am even more impressed." She looked up at him, enjoying the small insight into Tony DiNozzo.

"I got laughed at by my friends for weeks for saying that, because it was only the geeks who said things like that."

"They cannot have been very good friends, then."

"It's the sort of thing I say to McGee all the time." He looked down at his scuffed and grazed hands.

"Tony, I did not mean that you are not a good friend. Everyone knows that you are. Even McGee. Especially McGee. I would hazard a guess to say that after Abby you are maybe his best friend." She tried, smiling at him when he looked up at her.

"Nah, 'cause McGee, he probably wouldn't even think of spending time with me if we didn't work together."

"I would not consider spending time with you if we did not work together, Tony."

"You wouldn't?" He looked hurt again and she sighed.

"No. If we already knew each other then I would, but you can come across slightly, how do you say, er, pork-headed?"

"Pig-headed. I am not pig-headed."

"You can be at times." She finished with his cut. "But you can also be very kind. And gentlemanly. Like jumping in front of a car for me."

"It wasn't going that fast and it didn't really hurt that much…" He brushed it off in modesty, something that shocked her and made her smile.

"Thank you, Tony." She placed one hand on his forearm, one on his thigh, and looked up into his eyes. "I believe you say that you are kissing something better, yes?" He furrowed his brow in confusion as she leaned forwards, peppering kisses around the edge of the wound and trailing them up the defined muscles of his neck to just below his ear. The hand that had been on his leg moved up to knot into his short hair as her lips moved gradually down his jawbone from his ear to his mouth. "Thank you." She breathed as they parted momentarily, only long enough for their bodies to take in oxygen before the resumed their tender kisses that soon became more passionate.

"Are you certain the men's room is the best place for this specific liaison to take place, Officer David?" He asked hesitantly, half way through undoing her blouse buttons. She rested her forehead against his, closing her eyes and breathing heavily.

"Whilst I have no qualms about the location, I do not believe that Gibbs will be overly happy about us using the bathroom for…"

"Extra curriculum activities?" He supplied.

"Precisely." She sighed and he nodded slightly in agreement as she did her blouse up. They were both silent as he slid of the counter and readjusted his trousers. "However, I have not had lunch yet…"

"Good point. And I was just hit by a car…"

"Very true."

"My place is closer. You can drive." He grinned, unlocking the bathroom door and darting out, faster than she had seen anyone run before in her life.

 **I literally wrote this up in under an hour whilst unable to sleep. Again.**

 **It is not the best since my brain kept jumping about and would not sit still…metaphorically…now there is an image I would like to see.**

 **For my reference: 31** **st** **NCIS fic.**


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